Tenth Avatar: A Quest for Answers Reviewed By Dr. Wesley Britton of Bookpleasures.com

Dr. Wesley Britton

Reviewer Dr. Wesley
Britton: Dr. Britton is the author of four non-fiction books on
espionage in literature and the media. Starting in fall 2015, his new
six-book science fiction series, The Beta-Earth Chronicles, debuted
via BearManor Media. For seven years, he was co-host of online
radio’s Dave White Presents where he contributed interviews with a
host of entertainment insiders. Before his retirement in 2016, Dr.
Britton taught English at Harrisburg Area Community College. Learn
more about Dr. Britton at hisWEBSITE

Reading Tenth Avatar is
like reading two books in one. At the same time, the book is one of a
rare breed in science fiction. I don’t know about your
reading list of contemporary sci fi novels, but the vast majority
I’ve read are darkly pessimistic and dystopian. Not so the Tenth
Avatar. It’s not only optimistic and utopian, but even proposes a
path for humanity to follow to achieve a new level of spiritual,
economic, political, and social evolution.

The structure of the book
is built on two parallel, alternating stories that take place
thousands of years apart. One occurs In ancient India where we
meet Hanuman, a noted warrior and mystic living in the forests.
The setting is full of many mythological and fantasy elements.
While there are many humans running about, there are also very
intelligent ape-like creatures and their greatest enemy, the demons
of a nearby region ruled by the evil Raven. There are all manner of
strange, anachronistic weapons including radiation-bearing arrows and
missiles as well as powerful flying machines and a monstrous giant
robot-like killing machine.

But this world also has
warriors using powerful bows and arrows, wooden chariots, and
primitive maces. There are important mystical teachers, or “yogis,”
who teach wisdom to Hanuman and others in the orbit of powerful,
noble king-in-exile, Ram. He’s seeking his wife who was
kidnapped by Raven. In this world, the forces of good
gain superhuman power through meditation which leads to an awareness
of what is beyond a person’s body and self including an
understanding of how we fit into, well, everything.

Alternating with this saga
is the modern tale of theoretical physicist Krish, a brilliant mathematician
living in California. Trying to seek out the workings of life
and the universe using advanced mathematical formulas, he
inexplicably hallucinates vivid images of existence beyond his
physical self very like what the ancient yogis experienced.
Why? He doesn’t know.

Told with a very different
style from the tales of Hanuman, the author’s seemingly more
grounded, more realistic odyssey of Krish has an intriguing flow with
some puzzling plot holes. In the beginning,
Krish discovers something he calls Quantum Communication which uses
particle streams that can’t be hacked. Very quickly, the military
shows interest in Krish’s unproven theories. At the same time,
agents of unknown countries or organizations start trying to kill
Krish. The FBI assigns protection for the scientist, but apparently
not for very long. After his first bodyguard is killed on a plane, we
don’t see any signs anyone is watching over Krish even if he did
turn over his research to the Department of Defense. By himself, he
travels home to India seeking out the lost notes of an important
Indian mathematician. Any reader of spy novels will tell you this is
ideal territory for more assassination attempts. Or at Krish’s
wedding. And who was behind two terrible nuclear bombings in
the U.S., over both California and New York? We’re never told. The
adventures of Hanuman and Krish are brought together in the end, and
I suspect most readers will have picked up on the clues to the
ultimate resolutions long before the final reveals.

I have to admit, the use
of intense meditation to be the key to gaining overwhelming cosmic
awareness sounds better than I suspect it would really work in the
real world. I say that as someone who has practiced various kinds of
meditation for decades. Still, I am no authority on what
meditation technique would make someone a Yogi and/or guru who could
transform countless lives.

Nonetheless, it’s very
nice to read a novel that projects the possibility that an
enlightened humanity could be transformed under the tutelage of the
tenth avatar. It’s a story, well, two stories that can serve as
antidotes to the typical sci fi futures of genetic manipulation,
global warming, biological disaster, or alien invasions that serve as
constant warnings of what our futures might be.